Chocola has responded with a pair of ads designed to paint Donnelly as a conservative Republican's worst nightmare: a "tax and spend liberal".

Well, be it so; nowadays, the other choice isn't fiscal conservative. It's a "dont-tax,-but-spend-anyway" Republican. Like Chocola. Voters in that district (and elsewhere in Hoosierland, especially IN-08 and IN-09, need to be reminded: we had a budget surplus under Clinton. We have a staggering, historic debt, under Bush.

And what did it buy us? A war nobody wants, and threats to Social Security in a world where Bush/Chocola's corporate cronies are bailing out, right and left, on union-negotiated pension plans.

Chris Chocola stands out as one of the absolute worst and most extreme right-wing rubber stamp Republicans in an egregiously terrible, extreme right-wing, rubber stamp Republican caucus. Joe Donnelly is a lot better on issue after issue. But he's a conservative Democrat and we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that this is some progressive, independent-minded hero of the people here. If I lived in IN-02 nothing would keep me from voting against Chocola (and for Donnelly) in November. But your own statement-- "In reality, Donnelly would have broken with his party leadership and supported President Bush's tax cuts WITH THE EXCEPTION of the cut for the top 1%"-- tells us a lot about what we can expect from Congressman Donnelly. My fear about Donnelly is that the leadership he'll be breaking with is Pelosi's, not Emanuel's and Hoyer's.

When it comes to supporting a broad array of progressive, truly independent-minded  Democrats who are looking to displace terrible Republican incumbents, unless you have limitless resources, there are many candidates who will stand and fight for progressive ideals and principles a lot better than Donnelly. I'll acknowledge that if he and the creeps at the DCCC manage to rid the country of the likes of Chocola they will all deserve some praise and gratitude. But grassroots resources, nationally, need to go to candidates like Jerry McNerney, Paul Hodes, Donna Edwards, Jon Tester, Lois Murphy, Coleen Rowley, Larry Kissell, Rick Penberthy, Patrick Murphy, Ned Lamont and other Democrats who go beyond just being better-- or like Donnelly, even a lot better-- than a Republican.

I guess this is one of, if not THE, question among Democrats today: which candidates do we support (progressive or not) and, if so, how much?  I agree-personally I would love to see more candidates like Paul Hackett and Ned Lamont but I also know two things: we have to win back control to start to take our country back and we have to understand each area of the country.  In our area of Indiana, I am not sure how well a "progressive" could do against a two term incumbent unless that incumbent was caught with a dead woman or a live boy.  I am concerned that the netroots community may be pouring too much money and resources into a small number of races (such as Busby in California) when a fraction of the money spent in that race could greatly benefit a moderate candidate such as Donnelly.

I am not going to come on MyDD or Kos and portray Donnelly as a progressive; he is not and would tell you so himself, but he represents the 2nd district of Indiana and it's political makeup.  I will be straight with everyone and say that he will not betray his constituents by crawling in bed with big oil, big pharma and K street as our current rep has done.  He would vote his conscience and vote as a representative of northern Indiana which may not be as "red" as is commonly perceived.  He would ask tough questions on tough issues and be a common sense politician.  What more can we ask?  I do not begrudge anyone the right to support a more progressive candidate if they have some extra money laying around, but it would not kill us to have one more Democrat in the House.